Corporations fight Seattle minimum wage hike, cite slavery-ending law

A trade association representing giants such as McDonald’s is suing the city of Seattle over its minimum wage law. Claiming its members face unfair discrimination, it is using a constitutional amendment passed to end slavery as the basis for the lawsuit.

The International Franchise Association and several local
franchise owners accuse Seattle of violating state and federal
constitutions by requiring “large” employers – with 500 or more
employees – to implement the law by 2017, while business with
fewer than 500 employees have until 2021 to comply.

They object to the law’s classification of franchises as “large”
employers, arguing that franchises are independently owned and
operated and the law imposes “significantly higher labor
costs on small franchisees than on their non-franchised
competitors.” This, they argue, is violating the “equal
protections under the law” under the Fourteenth Amendment of the
US Constitution. (IFA v. Seattle)

Seattle voted in favor of a $15 per hour minimum wage last
summer. It is the highest minimum wage in the country, and more
than twice the federal rate of $7.25.

The lawsuit has come under a barrage of criticism, partly due to
the plaintiffs’ usage of the Fourteenth Amendment. One of the
three “Reconstruction Amendments,” it was adopted in 1868 as part
of an effort to abolish slavery. It is one of the most litigated
parts of the Constitution, and has been grounds for such landmark
cases as Brown v Board of Education (1954) which ended
segregation in schools, and Roe v Wade (1973) which lifted the
ban on abortions.

The McNugget Buddies invoke the 14th amdmt to protect
themselves, rather than workers with families to feed. http://t.co/UHqWGRgCRl

The idea of “fair, living wages” was very important to
the amendment’s authors, while today it is being invoked to harm
workers who are “slaving away for poverty wages,” argued
Ron Fein in The Huffington Post. Fein is the legal director at
Free Speech for People, an organization dedicated to making
“corporations responsible and accountable to the
public.”

Though Fein describes the lawsuit as McDonald’s going after
Seattle, no McDonald’s franchise owners are named as plaintiffs.
The fast-food giant is represented only indirectly, through the
International Franchise Association.

While in the past, fast-food workers were teenagers looking to
earn some spending money, today many of them are older and
struggling to support their families on low wages and few
benefits.

“The combination of low wages and benefits, often coupled
with part-time employment, means that many of the families of
fast-food workers must rely on taxpayer-funded safety net
programs to make ends meet,” said a 2013 UC Berkeley study of wages in the fast-food
industry.

Fast-food workers have gone on strike several times since 2012,
protesting low wages and a lack of union representation.

I know a lot of my friends don't eat @mcdonalds, but if you
needed another reason, it suing Seattle over our $15 min wage
is a good one.